Welcome
to
the Virtual Worm Project, an effort to recreate the nematode Caenorhabditis elegans
in
virtual form using the "free open source 3D content creation suite," Blender.
The current goal
is to
create a cell-by-cell reconstruction of
the adult hermaphrodite “worm” so as to generate a
virtual,
3-dimensional, interactive atlas of the anatomy of C. elegans.
This
website is intended to display rendered images from the model for those
generally interested in learning more about the anatomy of C. elegans.
We will have an interactive version of the model up and running for
general use in the near future.

2)
This fly-over
animation shows the position and morphology of the ALA
neuron of C.
elegans. The ALA
cell body lies in the head of the worm in the dorsal ganglion and has
two lateral projections that run (essentially) alongside the seam
cells, seen in orange.

Here are some static images of the Virtual Worm depicting various
tissues:

This
is a simple side-view of the worm, with the
hypodermis
(skin of the worm) made transparent for ease of viewing internal
organs. Of course we can view individual cell types or organs as well: